East Side Pies

East Side Pies is a block down the street from me. It’s a fairly new business and I’m happy they’re around. Their crust and tomato sauce are both vegan. Cheese is included automatically, so as long as you order your pizza without cheese, you have yourself a delicious vegan pizza.

I was feeling crappy yesterday, so I decided to order a pizza from them (If you’re vegan, you have to order a whole pizza, rather than just a slice). They offer many great specialty toppings, such as asparagus, habaneros, broccoli, artichoke hearts, eggplant, and red potatoes. Each extra topping is either $2 or $2.50, depending on whether or not you get a small or large pizza–so it’s best not to get carried away or you’ll end up spending a lot of money.

A small (14-inch) pizza is $11 with a choice of sauce. Vegan-friendly sauces include hummus, black bean spread, and spinach curry.

I ordered a small pizza with spinach curry sauce, eggplant, roasted garlic, and fresh basil. This ended up costing $16, which is not bad considering you can split it with 2 or 3 people depending on how hungry everyone is. The pizza came out looking yummy like this:

One thing I like about East Side Pies is that their crust is very thin and crispy – more like a cracker than a dough. I like this because I’d rather save my appetite for all the toppings rather than filling up on bread. But if you’re the type of pizza eater who prefers thick, doughy pizza crust, you may not love this pizza.

Also, I’m not sure if they normally cut the pizzas into slices, but this came uncut. That was fine with me because I was taking it home. It was fairly hard to cut though, so I can see that being problematic if the customer takes it straight to the park or tries to eat it in their car or something.

Anyway, my pizza would have been great as it came, but being the indulgent sort of person I am (and the stingy person who doesn’t want to pay extra for lots of toppings), I took my pizza home and added more toppings that I had in my kitchen. I added onions, tomatoes, chard, mushrooms, poblano peppers, black olives, black pepper, nutritional yeast, and sprouts.